Estilo Negligente

The starting point of this thesis has been a debate on the legitimacy of the EU from which the European Citizens’ Initiative has emerged. Research on this topic is of great relevance as a revision of the ECI is foreseen for 2015.

The research question has been: To what extent did the ECI Right2Water lead to public deliberation on the underlying policy issue? In the analysis, two sub-questions have been dealt with.

q1) How will ECIs improve the EU’s democratic legitimacy and how were the regulations for this implemented in the case of the Right2Water initiative? The EU views the ECI as a new form of citizen participation and as a means to nurture ‘cross border debate’ and generate a ‘European public space’. (European Commission, 2010a)

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As derived from deliberation theory, ECIs could improve the EU’s legitimacy by triggering a public debate following the criteria for mediated deliberation. To “facilitate deliberative legitimation process in complex societies” (Habermas, 2006, pp. 411–412), Habermas demands for ‘anonymous audiences’ who provide responses between an ‘informed elite discourse’ and a ‘responsive civil society’ (Habermas, 2006, pp. 411–412). For the analyzed Right2Water initiative, it was found that it was built on civil society actors. Citizens who were consolidated by Right2Water achieved to set their issues on the political agenda of the EU and into the (elitist) mediated public sphere in Germany. Thus, it can be argued that the ECI facilitates this process.

q2) To what extent did the Right2Water initiative result in a public debate in the leading German quality newspaper? Remembering that in “EU quality papers one out of five political articles “directly reports about at least one European issue" (Eder & Trenz, 2007, p. 169), it is exposed that in the German quality newspaper, the proposals of Right2Water are not assigned much attention in Süddeutsche Zeitung. The newspaper articles published on Right2Water have been rather short, which leaves only little room for deliberation. The mediated deliberation found does not satisfy the theoretical criteria on mediated deliberation as derived from Page (1996). For instance, actors such as experts were missing and many proposals and particularly counter arguments did not find any attention. Furthermore I find that Süddeutsche Zeitung only partly seems to take the role of actor for transnationalization as demanded for by Habermas (2011). As a reply, the extent of public debate on Right2Water in the leading German quality newspaper was scarce and confined by a low deliberative quality.

The ECI Right2Water has been illustrated in this thesis as a crucial case which has been further supported in the factual analysis e.g. by outlining the professional preparation of the initiators. Thus, it is still argued that if this ECI did not trigger public debate in Germany, it is not assumed that another ECI is likely to achieve this. The answer to the main research question therefore is that the ECI does not seem to contribute to the deliberative quality of public debate on EU policies.

As a consequence of the successful ECIs it appears that networking takes place and civil society is strengthened in transnational deliberation. However, it does not seem that the normative validity of the proposals made by Right2Water have been rigorously tested in the public sphere. The assumption of Habermas is that ideally only ‘considered opinions’ pass the public sphere and form the public opinion. (Habermas, 2006, pp. 417, 418) Building on the findings of scarce deliberation in the leading German quality newspaper, citizens would need to investigate more to be able to deliberate in their smaller spheres to ultimately get ‘enlightened’ on the ECI.

Explanations for the scarce extent of public debate on the ECI could be complex regulations, the decisional weakness of the instrument and the difficulty that the period of the ECI cycle of more than one year is quite long for newspapers to keep readers interested. If EU decision makers – or professional communicators – wish for a more deliberative public debate on the policy proposals triggered by the instrument, they would need to review and specify their objectives and put new efforts in achieving them. In order to fulfil the criteria for mediated deliberation set up in this paper, it would be more important to process voices and views to a large extent than several times reporting on the milestones in a limited way.

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In this paper, a mixed approach of case study design and qualitative content analysis has been used. On the one hand, the findings are not strong in generalizability. On the other hand, the whole case study provides valuable insides into the chances and constraints of the ECI to promote public deliberation on EU policies. By referring to ‘voices’ and ‘views’ (Page 1996), the paper gives insights into who is mentioned in the newspaper articles from Süddeutsche Zeitung on Right2Water and the specific issues referred to. The measurement of mediated deliberation might serve as an example for future research.

There are some issues the paper has not addressed. Firstly, there is the question of how the debate on the concessions directive connects to the debate on Right2Water. Furthermore, a comparison to debates on EU policies not triggered by ECIs might prove valuable to evaluate the significance of the public debate found. Concerning the functioning of the ECI, it might be useful to further elaborate on the question if it is an instrument for average citizens or rather for elites and the view of deliberation theory on this.

Finally, there are a few more remarks on the chances and constraints of the ECI. In reaction to numerous criticisms on the ECI (most prominently on the high amount of rejections), some fear that without a comprehensive reform, it will die. (The ECI Campaign, 2014b) There are only three open initiatives now, from which the most recent has been registered in February, 2015. (European Commission, 2015b) Currently, the ECI is frequently mentioned in the media, as an ECI that had been refused registration32 successfully campaigns as self-organized ECI - by nonetheless complying with most of the regulations as the organizers are confident that the ECI can be a mighty tool.

The evaluation could be a window of opportunity for public discussion on the ECI. A whole lot of actors33 have started to comment on future prospects34. Points of discussion for instance include how success of ECIs can be facilitated. To foster public debate on the issues of single ECIs, it has been proposed to let the EP prove the Communication from the Commission. (Simantke, 2014) Berg in general calls for “actions at a European and national level to raise public awareness and comprehension of, as well as trust in, this new tool of participatory democracy”. (Berg & Thomson, 2014a, p. 122) It will be interesting if a possible consolidation will be based on improved practical regulations, changing for a more direct decisional character or effectively pushing public debate on the ECI. This will provide many opportunities for further research.

1

In the media, a commonly phrased story is the following: The European Union faces an elemental problem: the voter turnout is low; people are not content or not interested (such as in German newspaper articles ). In the most recent EU parliament elections, this problem was especially focused on as it had been tried to increase voter turnout by nominating single candidates for the position of the EU Commission President. (EurActiv) This shows current concern by voices of the public and politicians alike.

2 _{Kohler-Koch and Rittberger (2007) furthermore believe that “the debate about the EU’s democratic quality}

mirrors a broader debate in comparative politics about the challenges the institutions of representative government face in a globalized and ever more interdependent world”. (Kohler-Koch & Rittberger, 2007, p. 3)

3 _{Formulated for instance in (European Parliament, 1996).} 4

Politicians for instance might use the term deliberation to legitimize actions, “it is perhaps unsurprising that yesterday's 'stakeholder meeting' becomes today's 'policy deliberation'” (Halpin & Cintula, 2014, p. 81).

5 _{Carpini, Michael X. Delli, Cook and Jacobs (2004) argue that definitions vary in the degree of ‘incompleteness’}

they allow.

6

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7 _{According to Gastil (2008), ‘enlightened understanding’ is also one of the criteria for democracy as named by}

Dahl (Dahl, 1989). (Gastil, 2008, p. 5)

8

This generation is inter alia represented by Bohman (1996) and Gutmann and Thompson (1996). (Elstub, 2014, pp. 5–7)

9

Elstub (2010) enlists as representatives of third generation deliberation theorists: Barber and Bartlett (2005), O'Flynn (2006), Parkinson (2006).

10 _{The reasoning of Page (1996) on society-wide mediated deliberation that is referred to here, for instance is in}

agreement with Habermas (2006, p. 416). I came upon the work of Page in Gastil (2008, pp. 49).

11

This is a crucial question, for instance concerning the knowledge of EU citizens on their rights derived from the installed citizenship (Treaty of Maastricht), including the right to initiate or participate in ECIs (Treaty of Lisbon), as well as on information as regards the existence of single ECIs.

12

There are some references (Knaut 2013; Paál 2013; Plottka 2013a, b; Kohlbacher 2006) which do not provide page numbers. Mainly, these are retrieved online and short in lengths. If chapter numbers are provided, these are given instead of the page numbers.

13

Signatures are only counted as actors if they refer to supporters who have already signed the initiative – instead of counting lacking signatures. They are also only taken in as additional information as – due to regulative yes or no signature-possibility – they do not present a different view from Right2Water.

14

“Commission expert groups can have the following types of members:

1. Individuals appointed in a personal capacity, acting independently and expressing their own personal

views

2. Individuals appointed to represent a common interest shared by stakeholders in a particular policy area. They do not represent individual stakeholders, but a particular policy orientation common to different stakeholder organisations. They are normally appointed on basis of suggestions from stakeholder organisations, including in the framework of calls for expression of interests, although they do not represent them.

3. Organisations in the broad sense of the word including companies, associations, NGOs, trade unions, universities, research institutes, EU bodies and international organisations. These organisations nominate individuals as their permanent representatives in the group or appoint representatives on an ad hoc basis depending on the meeting agenda.

4. National authorities of the Member States (at regional and local levels). Like for organisations, national authorities appoint their representatives in the group.” (European Commission, 2015c)

15

To recapitulate, this could ground on the assumptions that there is a “Europeanized national public spheres with synchronized common references to the EU” as quoted by (Thiel, 2008, p. 346) and that milestones of the ECI serve as events that are likely to trigger press coverage in European media (Eder & Trenz, 2007, p. 169)..

16

Mayring (2010) states that qualitative analysis is often orientated towards single cases. Due to the increased usage of case studies with a small number of cases, there is also a grown demand for qualitative methodology. (Mayring, 2010, p. 23) Mayring portrays the history of content analysis as having been developed for analizing newspaper articles and elaborates that in the last decades, there have been many critical voices. In fact, he cites scientists who argue that content analyses often do not undergo thorough methodological examination. However, Mayring also refers to the concept of Holger Rust who according to Mayring understands qualitative analysis as qualification and everything that prepares every form of quantification. Along with him, qualitative content analysis needs to direct to the structure and meaning of the material to be analyzed that is the text. As such, the construction of the text is the basis for Rust. Qualitative analysis therefore pursues a double strategy: it makes the object reveal itself in its structure by asking for details and on the other hand looks at the big picture. (Mayring, 2010, pp. 26–29)

17

European citizenship has been introduced with the Treaty of Maastricht, but only “a minority of Europeans say that they know their rights as citizens of the European Union”. (TNS opinion & social, 2014, p. 20)

18

The opinions on the democratic legitimacy range considerably. One perspective highlights that there is no democratic deficit and nothing needs to be done based on two positions. Firstly, the EU is seen as a merely regulatory community and should therefore not be assessed by the concept of democratic legitimacy. Secondly, it is argued that the standards the EU is assessed with are too idealistic (even for nation states). On the other hand, there is the perception that there is no deficit, but improvements could be done. Finally, there is the assumption that a huge deficit exists, but there are different opinions on its remedies: some authors suggest improvements that can be done, others are deeply skeptical on the possibilities. (Kohler-Koch & Rittberger, 2007, pp. 4–9)

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19 _{The instruments are: “the deliberative opinion polls ‘Tomorrow’s Europe’ and Europolis, the European}

Citizens’ Consultations, the Commission’s online consultations, the citizens’ initiative mentioned in the Treaty of Lisbon, as well as the (national) referenda with regard to major political developments” (Hüller, 2010, p. 82).

20 _{Actors important to the ECI include: the European Commission (expert group, several DGs depending on the}

topic of the ECI), the EP (among others the Committee on Petitions), the Economic and Social Committee, the European Ombudsman, Civil Society Organizations and European citizens in the role of organizing the ECI or supporting it via signatures.

21

The right to the citizens' initiative is incorporated in art. 11(4) of the Treaty on European Union. Its procedures and conditions are set out in regulation 211/2011 of the EP and of the Council of 16 February 2011. The technical specifications are elaborated in the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1179/2011. (European Commission, 2012b)

22

Partly, it had been discussed when considering ante-admissibility checks (European Commission, 2010b, p. 6). Furthermore, the EP had proposed an information campaign run by EU institutions to make the ECI public, but this has not been executed. (Monaghan, 2012, p. 293)

23

There is no funding for the organizers from the EU. (European Commission, 2012)

24

For an explanation of the dual system of the EU, see Bogdandy (2007)

25 _{For a more comprehensive view on different procedures, see Schiller (2002)} 26

The first two years have been reported and assessed by The ECI Campaign which is a collection of NGOs working on the topic. (The ECI Campaign, 2014)

27 _{Right2Water has been the first successful ECI, but not the one with the most signatures.} 28

The public hearing in the EP can be viewed online. (European Commission, 2014b)

29

Political parties who do not provide their press releases in German are: the ‘Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats)’ and the ‘Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE)’. The homepage under construction (at least the press archive) is the one of the ‘Conservatives and Reformists (ECR)’. The websites of ‘European United Left/ Nordic Green Left ( (GUE/NGL)’, ‘The Greens/ European Free Alliance’ and also of the ‘Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy’ did not display any coverage of Right2Water.

30

The ECI differs considerably from the possibility to petition the EP as there is a different regulation. The main difference might be the fact that the petitioner needs to be directly affected by the matter concerned. (European Commission, 2015a)

31 _{The MEPs have been Josef Weidenholzer and Evelyn Gebhardt from the Group of the Progressive Alliance of}

Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament which received 25.59% in the 2009 elections. The third MEP mentioned is Sven Giegold from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance which obtained 7,44% of the seats in 2009. Together, both parties received in total about 33% of the citizens’ votes amounting to one third of the seats. (European Parliament, 2015b)

32

The initiative was aimed at stopping the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that is currently negotiated by the EU and the USA. The reason for refusal has been commented by the Commission that it “falls outside the framework of the Commission’s powers to submit a proposal for a legal act of the Union for the purpose of implementing the Treaties” (European Commission, 2014c). This opinion is not shared by the organizers who stated that they will appeal to the European Court of Justice and start collecting signatures anyway by creating “Europe’s first ever self-organised ECI” (Stop TTIP!, 2014b). Apparently, they are confident that the ECI can be a mighty tool: “Although it has no direct decisional character, an ECI can create great impact. It creates a pan-European public for significant subjects, and spells out how citizens of the EU states think about them. This can also result in direct political achievements.” (Stop TTIP!, 2014c) Thus, the initiative sticks closely to the ruling of the ECI. (Stop TTIP!, 2014a) In record time, they achieved one million signatures and thus proved their point on the possible impact of the ECI. (Stop TTIP!, 2015)

33

Actors are the ECI expert group, the DG for Internal Policies (European Parliament 2014: First lessons of implementation), the European Ombudsman, but also actors from Civil Society. According to Berg, surprisingly many campaigns were launched in order to also build ‘bottom up democracy’ and in the end having had positive experiences became “vocal advocates for reforming the ECI implementation regulation”. (The ECI Campaign, 2014b)

34

Precisely what happens is that “the Commission has to publish a report by April 2015 assessing the implementation of the ECI. This report might then lead to a revision of the Regulation. The Commission is already gathering stakeholders' contributions as inputs for this report. Different issues will need to be addressed related in particular to process (including technical issues related to the online collection), timing (the various deadlines included in the Regulation) and broader elements of aim and impact of the instrument.“ (European Commission, 2014b)